EFC Way too High?

The only person who works in my home is my father, and he makes barely $50,000 a year. He supports me, my brother, my 2 sisters, and both of my grandparents. My EFC is almost at 174,000… Is this a joke or something? There are no errors in the application in the taxes section.

Either you reported very high assets, or you made an error.

You are saying your EFC is over three times your father’s annual income?

Do you own real estate in addition to your primary residence?

Did you include retirement savings in your assets?

What ARE your parent assets?

Did you put parent income and assets in both the student and parent sections?

Did you put the decimal point in the wrong place on an entry?

Did you (the student) have income or assets?

You say there are no errors, but clearly someone doesn’t add up…either that…or your family has HUGE assets.

Go over each line of that FAFSA…and look for what was entered incorrectly.

Did you report that you / your parents have assets over $3,000,000?

You either made a HUGE mistake (extra zeros), or your dad has AMAZING assets. If there is no mistake, then you need to say more than just “he barely makes $50k per year,” because that’s not telling the whole story.

What do your parents have? Stocks? Buildings? Rental properies? Land? What?

since the tax info has been checked, then it sounds like assets.

My grandparents have rental properties and land, but that shouldn’t affect my EFC if I’m just reporting my father’s income, correct?

^Did you report your grandparents’ assets (as assets of your parents) on the FAFSA?

Nope, I did not report their assets. And I cannot find where to review what I submitted, there is no link or anything. Just a link to “Provide Signatures,” which I’m scared to do since the EFC is completely off

Then you clearly made a mistake. Have your father look it over. EFC for 50k with no property owned and normal savings is only 6k or something like that. Do not report home value anywhere. Do not report 401k anywhere.

You don’t include your grandparents as family members most likely either, fyi.

Is there a “Previous” on the bottom for you to click?

Or, call for help https://studentaidhelp.ed.gov/app/home/site/studentaid

No, I already submitted the application since I reviewed it and it looked fine. Income was reported correctly, my dad filled out the rest and he said it was OK to submit.

If you only reported income of $50,000 and few or no assets, and came up with an EFC of almost $174,000, then you made a mistake somewhere. That is the only possible explanation.

We own the house we live in. It’s worth quite a bit, but it took over 20 years for us to pay it off. Is that contributing to it somehow?

Let ED processes your FAFSA, then review the SAR for any mistakes.

You said it didn’t look fine, because the EFC was way out of whack. Now you will have to fix it or you are going to a) not get any aid anywhere, or b) be subject to verification which means you will have to supply all sorts of paperwork and possibly have a delay in receiving an award. Very foolish of you to think you didn’t make a mistake. Why did your father sign that garbage?

Your parents’ assets should not include you home.

See https://fafsa.ed.gov/fotw1516/help/fotw43e.htm

If you read what I wrote, it hasn’t been signed yet. But I don’t think I can make any corrections to it until it gets signed…

^Ask ED / FAFSA if you can any corrections on the FAFSA that “hasn’t been signed yet”

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My grandparents have rental properties and land


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When you can correct your FAFSA to fix whatever errors you made, be sure that your grandparents were not counted as household members. Sounds like your grandparents have rental income, and maybe even social security.

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Just a link to “Provide Signatures,” which I’m scared to do since the EFC is completely off


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If you were given an EFC, then wouldn’t this part have been done? Or am I misunderstanding?

You don’t include the value of the home that you live in on FAFSA.